Beta delay.

The beta is delayed until february. The delay is totally on us. We underestimated the work needed. Thankfully it's nothing too dramatic. We need a few extra weeks to finalise everything for you guys.

On the other side we have a lot of things to share this time around.

The main quest’s dialogs for chapter one are all done. We hired a british writer who is proofreading for us. :)

Our composer just finished working on the music for chapter one and all we can say is that it is much better than what we expected. Don’t get us wrong, our expectations were high but our composer exceeded them. Thanks Matt for your hard work! Check out Balrum’s main theme. (Just click for the music here - If the music does not start to play please refresh the page!)

All chapter one monster types are finished. There are 20 monsters in the game already! All of them use various spells/abilities against each other and of course against the player. :) We won’t show you all of them, but here is one new:

Teachers are in the world. If you fully progressed a skill level you have to go to a trainer to learn the new level of the given skill.

The crafting systems are finally done! We need to balance it a little bit more, but it turned out to be a really interesting feature. All things that we promised like a little randomness in crafting, all kinds of crafting combinations for custom items, naming and selecting an icon for your custom item and special really powerful combinations that you can figure out by yourself are in the game.

Hundreds of sound effects are completed, giving the game a totally new vibe.

Dozens of UI improvements: Now you have 5 main bars that you can select from. (you can put your foods on bar 1 and your potions of bar 2, spells…etc)All new items are highlighted in your inventory. The loot panel was completely rewritten. Improved trade panel. With crafting randomness we had to figure out a problem. The problem was that when you craft 10 minor healing potions they might be a little different from each other. These minor healing potions show up in one icon, but when you shift+click it a new panel appears where all of the minor healing potions are sorted buy their attributes.

All humanoid and a few other NPCs have complex daily routines. For example: Aron is the blacksmith in your village and he usually works on his anvil during the day, after a hard day of work he sleeps in his bed like a child, but before he goes to sleep he turns off the torches that would disturb his sleep.

There are 10 optional dungeons in chapter one, all of them are in a near complete form.

A lot of puzzles are completed. For example: You can expect to have a little bit of a headache when you are trying to get in..or out of a dungeon. :)

The list goes on and on but these are the most interesting things and we don’t want to spoil everything. The full list of changes is a multiple hundred item list. :)

Ohh yes, and you can expect the beta for all three platforms! (the screenshots were taken on OSX)

Delays aren't such a problem as long as backers are kept in the loop, and updates like this do just that. Getting a native language proof reader is a good idea but will Balrum be available in other languages also? (or be moddable to allow for fan translations)